


Only What a Man May Do

by dread_thehalfhanded



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Emotionally Constipated Thanatos (Hades Video Game), Feelings Realization, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 10:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dread_thehalfhanded/pseuds/dread_thehalfhanded
Summary: Thanatos knows what it is to be on the cusp of godhood, and he helps, where he can.It does not really go as planned.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	Only What a Man May Do

He is not a real god, not yet.

He hasn't earned it, little Hades, still running fire-footed through the halls of his father. All furor and a brash anger, righteous certainty clangorous behind his eyes. Never still, that one, proud as the old heroes and just as vicious.

He’s not the god of anything in particular, here in the flower of perpetual youth. Immortal blood in his veins, like the rest of us, but no deed of note to seal him patron of anything in particular—but it won't be long now, not long at all, thinks Thanatos.

A few more puddles of blood in the halls of this House, and it will fall still forever.

He remembers, idly, pale hands slipping over the pale bone banisters as he climbs the great stair. He can still recall what it was like, eons ago, before he came into his own. A time long gone—if it ever was—when he was born half-grown, immortal and unknown, a figment of Nyx’s imagination brought to bear by Hades’ will. A time before he understood himself, and slipped into the shoes prepared long ago for him. _Death_ — had the universe waited for him, or he for it?

He was death, and death was him, and so long had passed since then that there was little enough difference between the two.

But he is not so old that he does not remember what it was like before. A time of mist, and a time of rage, and a time when he wished to end himself for all the sorrow he must bring to the world. A child’s foolish anger, in hindsight; but the pain was bitter then, salt and bone against his teeth. We have no choices, no threads of fate to tangle like mortal men, and it is a fool’s errand to rage against them. But that has not stopped any young godling from trying. 

So, when Zagreus rages, when he runs faster than the eye can follow, when he brims over full of misdirected wanting, wanting—Thanatos knows. In some measure, he understands. It is not Zagreus’ fault. He is not anyone yet, and has nothing to do with all that simmering power. (A little responsibility is good for a man.)

Thanatos knows what it is to be on the cusp of godhood, and he helps, where he can.

He does not violate the terms of his commission, no. His work is who he is, and to leave it would be to leave himself. He cannot _help_ Zagreus, cannot carry him under his winter-white wings through the dark paths known only to himself and Charon. He cannot share his cloak, that the son of fire might walk unscathed among the shades. He cannot do any of those things.

He does only what a man may do: When Zagreus stumbles over his words, haltingly apologizes with too many syllables and not near enough hands, he takes him in his arms without a shred of self-pity. He knows that this will hurt, knows it like an adder to the breast, a knife under the ribs.

But this is what Zagreus needs, and so he will give it. Besides, he tells himself; he has seen worse, he will survive.

He takes him in his arms, and he kisses him. Kisses the fire-bright tears, the blood-hot cheeks, the warm lips full of breath, round with life. Hands wrap hungry around his waist, already under his tunic, his cloak, seeking and clawing for him. He smiles at the young man’s eagerness, remembering somewhere back in his foggy past what it felt like to want so badly you could crawl out of your skin with it.

Such hunger is a young man’s game.

Thanatos smiles. He is not in a hurry, and does not intend to rush his pleasure. He puts away Zagreus’ hands, gently, gently, kissing his fingertips as though each were a sacred honey-blessed thing. Zagreus makes a frustrated sound, and Thanatos strokes his lips with a swipe of his thumb. At the breath-catch that follows, Thanatos pushes him back onto the bed with a single hand.

To his surprise, Zagreus goes down easily, tumbling onto his back with a grin. That’s new, thinks Thanatos, kneeling to press kisses from ankle to calf to shuddering thigh. The son of fire has never done anything in his life without a fight, passion not excepted in the least. Yet here he is, in this everlasting night, all tousled and pliant, hands fisted in the sheets without so much as a flicker of misplaced dominance. A half-giggle escapes his mouth as teeth touch sensitive skin, and he has never looked more beautiful.

Thanatos wonders, even as he carefully, carefully sucks a purple mark into the corded muscle of his thigh.

But then, Zagreus has changed much recently. He has seen the swell of Zagreus’ muscles grown, knows intimately the hard lines of his belly. He knows that the darkness has grown in him, he knows it will not be long now before he is gone forever. Perhaps it is not unrealistic for this, too, to have changed.

A hand on his hair pulls him out of his thoughts; polite, but insistent. 

“Come up here, Than, and kiss me properly.”

The words come out breathy, not bratty at all today, and he cannot help but go and give his prince what he has asked for. He takes the strange-eyed face in his hands, kisses his cheeks, his nose, his hair, before covering the soft lips with the tenderest kiss he has to give.

Laugher dissolves into a sigh so soft it hurts; and he bites the wicked lips for good measure.

They move together, tangled and kissing still, thighs slotted against each other and still tangled in their clothes. Thanatos tries not to think too hard, tries not to think at all. This is, after all, about the bold life under him, not whatever strange dredged-up feelings rise unbidden in the murk of his own heart.

A man may only do so much. Can only bear so much.

Once, after Zagreus crept out into the wide deeps of hell again, he went to Nyx. He let her hold him while he wept, grieving for something nameless, safe in the mother-soft warmth of her. She, wise, asked no questions. He could not have answered her anyway.

He knew, today, the moment Zagreus washed up in blood like birthing on the tile of his father’s house. He knew because he was waiting there like a fool, unable to busy his hands with anything while waiting, and wondering. In front of others, in front of Zagreus himself, Thanatos keeps a chain on himself—he’s had millennia to practice it. But Hades was not there that day, and the house was empty.

Thanatos knows what that means, too. It will not be long now at all.

A flood of pleasure washes through him, and he gasps into Zagreus’ neck. The little fiend has a hand around him now, and he’s grinning about it, moving his hand and tightening his perfect fist, and shattering, just shattering Thanatos’ perfect control. He rocks against the hot skin, eyes staring into one fire-bright eye, one pooled green. Both are bright with mischief, hot with hunger.

He comes, suddenly and without warning; and he knows the truth.

But this is not about him, or his realizations.

As soon as he is not boneless with pleasure, he slides down Zagreus’ body and takes the length of him into his mouth. He tries to put into that act, that slick slide of lips and tongue all that he feels, all that he wants to tell Zagreus. All that he never will—you cannot stand between a young man and his godhood. 

The choked-off moan he gets is _something_ , but it is not quite enough.

When he wakes, Zagreus has gone. He does not have to humiliate himself by searching the west wing, the lounge, the armory, only to find them all empty, to know where he has gone.

Left alone with himself, Thanatos stares at the bedroom ceiling. He runs a hand over his face. It was not supposed to be like this. Not at all.

The truth is that he will miss this. He will miss this like death when it is gone.

\---

Thanatos helps, where he can. He knows it will not last. One day, Zagreus will find a way out of this place, and his godhood will slip over him like a second skin, and he will be someone else. Or, he will be who he ought to have been all along.

But for now, for now he is only little Hades, son of his father—and try as he might, Thanatos does not mind that at all.


End file.
